Descent of the Demon Master-Chapter 1267. Investigating (2)

Lee Hyeon-Su wordlessly stared at the ampoule in his hand.

On the surface at least, it looked like a... common cough medication. But the clear liquid contained within was no medication, but some kind of narcotic instead.

“The Tears of the Devil, is it...?”

Lee Hyeon-Su chuckled helplessly.

What a cringe name that was. But that dumb name was the least of Lee Hyeon-Su’s problems. First of all, this drug wasn’t even manufactured in Korea, to begin with!

The Tears of the Devil, AKA TOD.

Here was the new type of drug currently doing big business in North and South Americas. It seemed whoever created this thing decided to name their creation after TOG, the Tears of God, another drug that used to cause so much trouble in the past.

In spite of its name, though, this drug’s strength and addictiveness were the real deal.

Most of the drug trade in Korea saw the trafficking of stuff like amphetamine or ecstasy, which weren’t as powerful as TOD. Unsurprisingly, the recent introduction of TOD, which boasted much greater strength than most drugs, had set the proverbial cat among the pigeons in the Korean underground drug trade.

Of course, the cops were spending a lot of resources to get a handle on this situation, but the suppliers’ movements proved far too stealthy for the hapless police. Arresting the ringleaders was a distant pipe dream for them right now.

Lee Hyeon-Su tucked the ampoule into his pocket, then glanced behind him.

“Hey.”

“Urgh, euh...”

“Get a grip on yourself already.”

Lee Hyeon-Su groaned while staring at a man before his eyes. This man was on the floor, convulsing violently while white foam gushed out of his mouth.

Anyone unawares might get the wrong idea from this scene, but Lee Hyeon-Su was not responsible for this man’s state. No, this man was a junkie, and he was convulsing like this because the withdrawal symptoms had finally hit him in full force.

“Damn. This drug is something else, isn’t it?”

Lee Hyeon-Su tutted loudly.

This wasn’t his first time seeing a junkie. Lee Hyeon-Su had started his career from the very bottom of society, after all. As such, he had run into his fair share of junkies before.

All junkies suffered from withdrawal symptoms of varying severity, but the symptoms shouldn’t be bad enough to physically hurt them to this degree.

Overdose could kill, yes, but ‘under-dosing’ on drugs shouldn’t kill people. But this junkie before Lee Hyeon-Su’s eyes was in a state of near-death. All because he hadn’t shot himself up with this drug!

‘This is bad news.’

Some people said South Korea was free from drugs. Unfortunately for them, that was nothing more than a delusion of those who didn’t know the truth.

If South Korea didn’t have a drug problem, why would its police force have a dedicated narcotics division? Drugs exchanged hands in secret all over the country. Even now, many addicts were moaning and gasping under the influence of various illicit substances.

Even then, this TOD was a massive step-up from all the drugs in circulation within Korea. If something this powerful had managed to infiltrate even deeper into Korean society... It’d cause one hell of chaos!

Lee Hyeon-Su glanced at one of his men. “This bastard won’t die, right?”

“No, sir. He won’t. Although his condition seems weirdly bad... I’ve never heard of someone dying from withdrawal symptoms, anyway.”

“That’s a relief.”

Lee Hyeon-Su stared at the junkie, a hint of pity and displeasure in his expression. This guy looked young, so how did he get hooked on such a nasty drug?

Lee Hyeon-Su leaned down and shook the junkie’s shoulders a couple of times before shaking his head. Talking to this guy was obviously not going to happen.

“Hey. Take this guy to a hospital.”

“But they’re gonna book him for drug addiction, sir.”

“That’s better than this nonsense. You think this punk can quit on his own?”

“...No, sir.”

An addict this far gone, cleaning himself up through his own willpower? Something like that was unheard of. If anyone could quit at any time they wanted, drugs wouldn’t be called drugs anymore!

“One red mark on your ledger doesn’t mean your life’s over, right? But you gotta stop taking drugs, otherwise your life is over for real. You think you can take this kid to your home, tie him up so he can behave himself, and feed him meals and medication until he feels better?”

“No, sir. I can’t.”

“See? Take him to the hospital, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Martial Assembly member slung the junkie on his shoulder.

Lee Hyeon-Su deeply frowned while watching the junkie being carried outside the store.

If you committed a crime, you should also pay the price. Victims were usually not forced into taking drugs. Whether they started out of curiosity or because of some other reasons, it was people themselves introducing the drugs into their systems.

One didn’t usually get addicted by mistakenly taking drugs once. To become as addicted as this junkie, one would have to buy the drugs consistently and shoot themselves up with them.

Since that was the case, the junkie should pay the price, too. Just like those two over there.

“Urgh, euh...”

Lee Hyeon-Su turned his attention to the duo on the ground moaning away in pain. He couldn’t help but sigh at the sight of how utterly destroyed the two of them looked.

“I told you to cut off their fingers, didn’t I? Why did you beat them up to a pulp instead?”

“But, sir, isn’t this better?”

“Better? When cutting fingers off would’ve been cleaner?”

“...”

Lee Hyeon-Su cocked an eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

The Assembly member began sweating a little. “N-no, well, uh...”

“Besides, cutting off a finger or two isn’t a problem these days. Hospitals can reattach stuff like that pretty easily, anyway,” said Lee Hyeon-Su nonchalantly.

“Then, uh, do you want us to cut them off now?”

“Hmm. Maybe?”

That was when the dealer and the guard on the floor hurriedly raised their heads in panic. Because they could tell these people were fully capable of cutting their fingers off. The intense beating they received was ample-enough proof of that!

“P-please, don’t kill us!”

“We, we’ll tell you everything we know! Please, spare us!”

The duo desperately crawled toward Lee Hyeon-Su despite their trembling, unsteady limbs. They pleaded pitifully, but Lee Hyeon-Su cackled strangely back at them instead.

“You want to live?” Lee Hyeon-Su asked while sitting on the chair. He then kicked away the duo with much disdain. “A pair of punks selling drugs and ruining other people’s lives are too afraid to die, eh? Is that it?”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s glare grew icy once more.

“You are still alive only because there are some things I want to hear from you. I don’t have a reason to keep you alive if you can’t even answer me properly.”

“N-no, we’ll tell you, sir! Everything!”

“It, it’s not like we can contact our suppliers, you see? We, we go to a place they tell us to at a specific time and get the drugs from there! I swear!”

“Is that right?” Lee Hyeon-Su tilted his head, then turned to look at his men. “Hey. Did you get the wrong information?”

“Sir? What do you mean?”

“Are you telling me that our people have been using that kind of method? When none of you are smart enough for that?”

When Lee Hyeon-Su nonchalantly said that, a chorus of boos broke out from his men.

“Holy cow! Why do you always underestimate us like that, sir! We may not look that way, but we all have brains, you know!”

“Yes, sir! It’s not that we’re dumb, we just can’t be bothered to use our brains, that’s all! Don’t lump all of us into one category of ‘dumbasses’, please!”

“Oiii, why are you raising your voice at me? You wanna test my patience?”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s sharp glare was enough to force his men to lower their heads in a hurry. Although they got triggered just now, none of them were ballsy enough to argue with Lee Hyeon-Su.

After successfully lightening the mood with silly banter, Lee Hyeon-Su casually shrugged before glancing back at the dealer and the guard. “Okay, so? Where is this place you were talking about?”

“...”

“Still unwilling to talk?”

“N-no, it’s not that, but... T-they’ll really kill us if we tell you.”

“Don’t worry about that. We will kill you now if you don’t speak up, anyway.”

“B-but, sir. They already killed someone as an example, you see? And we saw that happening and all... If, if we tell you where, we’ll really die.”

Lee Hyeon-Su narrowed his eyes. “...Say what now?”

“S-sir, I’m telling you the truth, we...”

“Did you say they killed someone to set an example?”

“Y-yes, they did.”

“And you saw it all?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s expression grew even icier than before.

The Martial Assembly’s rules were strict. Not all of them had been codified or spoken out loud constantly, but everyone in the Assembly still knew what they were not supposed to do.

Kang Jin-Ho strictly forbade the Assembly members from dealing in drugs and hurting ordinary citizens. But now, not only these bastards sold drugs to their own countrymen, but even killed ordinary people, too?

Now that was unforgivable.

Lee Hyeon-Su’s entourage promptly clamped their mouths shut after noticing the change in his mood. Everyone in the Assembly knew how scary Lee Hyeon-Su could get when he was genuinely furious.

Although he had gotten a lot softer these days, which allowed others to exchange banter with him, when Lee Hyeon-Su first joined the Assembly? No one dared to look him in the eye back then!

“Now, listen carefully,” said Lee Hyeon-Su.

The drug-dealing duo cautiously replied, “Y-yes, sir...”

“I’m in no mood to joke around. You tell us where the location is and when you’re supposed to go there, and we’ll protect you. We’ll make sure they can’t even touch a hair on your body. Understand?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Lee Hyeon-Su briefly nodded.

“However, keep wasting my time like that, and you’ll learn what kind of people we are. Don’t think what you’ve experienced so far was the best we could do. I, too, have my principles, and that’s why we’ve been holding back as much as possible. However, that story will change if you insist on protecting those bastards. We’ll have to become much more serious. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, tell me everything you know. I’ll decide your fate afterward.”

The duo saw the icy expression on Lee Hyeon-Su’s face and started talking urgently.

***

Sizzle...

The tip of Lee Hyeon-Su’s cigarette burned noisily.

As he sat on the chair and smoked away, one of his men cautiously addressed him. “Sir. We’ve asked them three times, and their stories remained consistent each time. I don’t think they were lying.”

“Hmm.”

Lee Hyeon-Su silently nodded once.

Although he didn’t think the drug-dealing duo would lie in this situation, being prudent was always a good idea.

Lee Hyeon-Su wouldn’t have gotten involved in a... ‘minor’ job like this. Not usually. But the entire situation was important enough to get him involved. Not only was dealing in drugs a serious concern, but also...

‘The Assembly Master is paying attention to this problem, too.’

It was unthinkable to do a sloppy job on an assignment Kang Jin-Ho had ordered him to deal with.

Lee Hyeon-Su roughly massaged the bridge of his nose. Maybe because of stress, a migraine began assaulting him.

“Sir, what should we do about these two?”

Lee Hyeon-Su glanced at the pair of drug dealers shivering pitifully away at a corner. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

“Well, I said we’d protect him, so that’s what we’ll do.”

“Sir? Should we take them to the Assembly?”

“No. Hand them over to the nearest police station.”

“Sir?”

The eyes of the entourage grew slightly wider.

“But what about protection...?”

Lee Hyeon-Su tutted. “Who’s gonna protect them better than the cops? Have you ever heard of someone getting killed inside a holding cell?”

“N-no, not really...?”

“There you go, then. Hand them over to the cops. They should pay for their crimes, anyway.”

“Understood, sir.”

Even though they heard that their next destination was a police station, the dealers didn’t display any notable reactions. Was it because they figured that being in custody was better than getting dragged away by Lee Hyeon-Su’s men? Or because their minds were too frazzled by this experience to think straight? Who could tell? Or cared?

Lee Hyeon-Su wordlessly sucked on the cigarette.

The bitter taste in his mouth didn’t want to go away. It wasn’t the fault of the cigarette, though. The cigarette’s bitterness was dwarfed by the bitterness coming from somewhere deep within his gut, after all.

‘Even though I wouldn’t have felt anything in the past...’

Back when he was the second-in-command at the Yeongnam Group, Lee Hyeon-Su often dealt with troublesome members personally. Thanks to how cruel he was back then, the Yeongnam Group members grew to fear him, didn’t they?

Indeed, he was unhesitant and merciless when it came to handling internal problems back then. But now? Lee Hyeon-Su was trying to deal with this bitter unwillingness, something he had never experienced before in the past.

‘Is it because I view them as a part of the family?’

Lee Hyeon-Su hurriedly shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to drown himself in these thoughts. No, he must capture every single one of them. And to do that, he must remain cold-blooded and focused.

“Clean this place up,” said Lee Hyeon-Su.

“Yes, sir!”

Lee Hyeon-Su stubbed the cigarette on the floor before getting up to leave.

“Oh, and hand over all the recovered drugs to the cops, too.”

“Understood!”

Lee Hyeon-Su turned around and exited the store.

‘The scale of their operation might be larger than we thought...’

He didn’t like this. At all.

From this moment on, the Assembly must fight against external enemies. Unfortunately, an organization growing past a certain size would inevitably be forced to deal with internal issues, too.

Although Lee Hyeon-Su wasn’t sure how Kang Jin-Ho would handle this situation, an internal problem of this nature would definitely change the atmosphere in the Assembly for the worse.

‘It seems not everyone shares our sentiment, then.’

While making a regretful face, Lee Hyeon-Su leaned against the wall next to the exit.